A Wisp, Dancing Brightly
by shan14
Summary: It is with this craftiness, this elusive charm, that Mackenzie McHale spins through life – and god help the poor devils that get caught in her web. Jim has the sneaking suspicion you can never escape it.


A/N: So I was watching the pilot, and theres a moment when Mackenzie sort of collapses in her chair and guilts Jim into approaching Maggie, and I just loved their interaction. That Jim know's her, and has been through so much with her, but obviously just...loves her. And then the story exploded in an attempt to work through my Mackenzie feels.

* * *

There are lots of things people first think about Mackenzie McHale, and the chances are that Jim's thought most of them at one point or another.

When he first met her, he thought she was beautiful.

With chestnut hair clipped back from her face, the faintest hint of a blush on her cheekbones and piercing brown eyes that locked on him, there was not much hope of him finding her anything else. Then she had opened her mouth and out had sprung a lilting, British accent, and Jim – who had always had a thing for accents – hadn't been able to do much more than smile and nod at her, smitten.

If he thinks about it, that's probably why she believes he's always had a crush on her. He'd hardly done more than stare dumbly whilst she'd shaken his hand, and okay, yes, perhaps he did have a crush on her. _Then_. He's grown out of it now, thank you very much.

His initial crush had quickly morphed into admiration and then a professional and personal respect.

And then somewhere along the lines he'd realised she was insane.

She doesn't understand a word he says when he discuses the basic financial situations surrounding, well, _the world_ – nor does she react well to jellyfish. She can be somewhat awkward in normal conversation, has the tendency to use her hands excessively and in swirling motions that give Jim headaches and her speeches can last for hours. And generally containing yelling.

Despite the crazy, she's also one of the best reporters he's ever had the honour of working with. And it is perhaps that fact, alongside the flutter of her eyelashes, that keeps him with her the first month they are in Iraq.

She is a complex roller coaster of a human being who is at once upbeat and prone to sermons and likely to burst into tears and also intensely dedicated to producing good quality news broadcasts. The first time he actually reads something she's written for back home, he realises quickly that beneath the pretty brown eyes and impish lilt is an intelligent, analytical mind.

He can remember the soldiers who met them when they first arrived in Baghdad, and the look they'd all shared when Mackenzie had stepped from the truck. She was small and shaken and utterly determined to not let anybody see that, and the Marine had looked her up and down with an uncertain curl to his lip.

Mackenzie McHale doesn't look like someone who should be reporting from caves in a war zone.

She's small and slight and still scatters whenever Jim closes a door too loudly, but somehow over the months she emerged as the sanest member of their team and Jim noticed when the Marines stopped sharing uncertain looks across her head and instead started calling her ma'am with fond respect.

There are many things people first think about Mackenzie McHale, and that she would survive 26 months imbedded in a warzone was perhaps not one of them.

Most people assume she's incredibly delicate. Maybe it's because she sounds British.

She walks into a room and opens her mouth and she honestly looks like she should be on the cover of an Austen novel, wearing a bonnet and sipping tea and commenting on the neighbours rose garden. Not wading deep in the Green Zone.

Mackenzie's strength lies in her ability to convince people she's one way, without doing anything, and then completely blindsiding them with the other.

Yes, she's a sweetheart – Jim's seen her interact with children _(She turns into a puddle of mush and makes animated faces and strokes back girls fringes whilst playing thumb wars with the boys)_

And yes, as Will puts it, she's annoyingly ethical.

Once upon a time Jim had made the mistake of suggesting they report without a second source – in his defense he'd young and idealistic and believed their first source was trustworthy and true. He'd been right, and the news had been reported, but only after Mackenzie had found a second source of the same information and had sent Jim icy glares all throughout the video broadcast.

He's never met someone so passionately dedicated to upholding the principals of democracy as Mackenzie.

When Charlie Skinner says there are only two people in the world that could run News Night with such a passionate belief in _good_, solid, unbiased news, he's right in saying it's Will McAvoy and Mackenzie McHale. She would put her job, her integrity, perhaps even her life, on the line for the sake of reporting.

Not to mention she's a manipulative bugger. Crafty, she calls herself, and Jim hadn't believed her at first, a week into their acquaintanceship when she'd threatened to beat him to a pulp. He'd been sorely mistaken months later when she'd landed a blow to his stomach that had sent him spiraling back onto his bed – all because he'd arrived back at camp 20 minutes late.

It is with this craftiness, this elusive charm, that Mackenzie McHale spins through life – and god help the poor devils that get caught in her web. Jim has the sneaking suspicion you can never escape it.

ooo

It's 11 pm on a Friday evening and the team is gathered at their local bar celebrating Mackenzie's birthday. She refuses to tell them how old she is and threatens Will with bodily harm if he so much as breathes an answer. They're all a little merry and drunk, and Charlie has slung an arm around Mackenzie's shoulder whilst he tells stories of a young Ms. McHale bossing them around in the newsroom.

Apparently, if you lined up 10 people and asked them who was the best in the business, according to Charlie, 8 of them would reply Mackenzie and the other 2 would be stupid. Jim would probably agree - not only because she's his boss – but also because he's never had the feeling he was doing such a _good_ job, as he does when he arrives at News Night 2.0.

Mackenzie, who has a hand wrapped tight around her martini, blushes and ducks her head against the compliment, and then nods into Charlie's shoulder and dares anyone to disagree.

Jim notices Will sitting in the corner with a genuine, adoring smile, and wonders if the anchor knows he's wearing it. Jim's probably wearing one similar, because it is at this moment – surrounded by friends and people he now considers family – that he realizes he's a little bit in love with Mackenzie McHale.

Not in a romantic sense. Despite his little crush (which has very much disappeared, thank you) he's never actually entertained that sort of interest in her.

Rather, he wants to run up and cuddle her and press a kiss to her forehead and promise her he'll always be there for her.

He thinks perhaps the cuddle and kiss are a result of the beer clutched in his hand, but the rest is a feeling that he's had for a long while – Mackenzie's the closest he has to an older sister, a somewhat wayward older sister – and he'd just about die protecting her.

She sidles up by his side later in the evening, and wrapping a hand around his elbow, leans her head against his shoulder.

"You should sing," she murmurs, voice high and breathy and her eyes are dazed with the light reflecting off the bar.

Jim barks out a laugh and pats her hand comfortingly. "How many of those have you had?" he asks, tipping his head towards her drink.

She shrugs against him and mumbles something unintelligible, and then, "Will keeps putting them in front of me."

"I do not!" retorts Will from down the bar, but his voice lacks its usual heat and he's still wearing that smitten smile. Mackenzie doesn't even lift her head, but grumbles something back at him.

"You and Will should sing," she breathes suddenly, head perked up and leaning heavily on Jim's shoulder. "Please," she pleads, "My two boys singing."

Jim glances up a Will and wonders what he's thinking.

Sometimes it feels almost given that the two of them will end up back together – like they just have to wade through all the shit that blew up 5 years ago and then eventually they'll get to the married stage.

Like no matter how many bottle blondes and brain surgeons Will parades through the newsroom, he'll always end up back at Mackenzie.

Jim doesn't understand their relationship. He could never hope to. He knows what Mackenzie did and he's witnessed enough of their fights in the newsroom to guess at its intensity. If anyone else was in their situation he'd not think twice about a reunion.

But there's something in the way she say's _my two boys_ that makes him reconsider, something so possessive in both Will and Mackenzie's nature towards the other.

He can remember the way Mackenzie spoke of their relationship whilst Will was in hospital – as if, even though they weren't together, that their relationship, (he and I, _us_) was the only real relationship in her life. Like a wife referring idly to her husband when he's annoyed her – like you do when you're angry with the person you love, but still so very much in love with them.

He thinks perhaps that's their problem. They're not twenty. They're not even thirty. They didn't enter a relationship and fall in love just for the fun of it, and it's not something they can just get over.

They were each other's future – forever, eternity. And to have that taken away at a time when neither of them had the heart or the mind to search for it again?

Well, Jim can understand that their hearts are telling them _it's this one or no one, buddy. _

He thinks perhaps he needs to talk to Will one day. Because he knows things that make so much more sense following Mackenzie's mass email – and hadn't that been another bend in the roller coaster that is being attached to Mackenzie's life.

Here was his boss, and his friend, and suddenly she wasn't the saintly sweetheart the marines had believed her to be, but instead a messed up, slightly idiotic human being. On the great scale of idiocy hers is up there with the best of them, but there is something genuinely sincere in Mackenzie's obvious mistake – it wasn't malicious, or hateful, or in anyway meant to hurt Will – but at the same time it had, and it does and she must have known that.

It makes her vulnerably human in a way Jim has only ever seen one other time.

And it is this he wants to tell Will about.

Because there's a reason he would hang the moon and the stars for this woman. A reason he followed her from warzone to warzone even after being shot in the ass – and then again to a different type of warzone back in New York.

There's a reason that when she sits down heavily, and flutters her eyelashes and drops her chin, that he melts like ice cream into a mass of sticky goo who would agree to just about anything.

Once upon a time, in the middle of Baghdad, Jim had been midway through typing up a report to send through to the office. It was late in the afternoon and the heat of the city was unbearable. Sweat dribbled down his back in a now disgustingly familiar fashion, leaving his shirt dirty and stuck to his skin and the whole room smelling of perspiration.

It has been a quiet afternoon, or as quiet at Baghdad consented to being – and Jim was turning to grab his phone when the inside of the door had blown to pieces and then everything had gone to _hell_.

He doesn't remember much after that, only the ringing in his ears and the sting of dust up his nose and then a terrible, aching scream from the room next door where Mackenzie had been resting moments earlier. He knows he crashed through the door, expecting – well, he hadn't know what he expected – but the marines who accompanied them at all times were in a frenzy and nobody was opening fire, but they'd tackled someone to the ground and Mackenzie - Mackenzie was lying against the wall on the far side of the room, covered in blood.

Her eyes had been glassy and her skin was clammy – she was pale, and white lipped and frail against the blood seeping through her shirtfront. Jim had clutched her close and the Marines' had gathered and pressed cloth and gauze to her wounds, all the while telling her the medic was on his way, _just another second ma'am, you'll be alright ma'am, you'll be bossing us around in no time ma'am_ – and Mackenzie's eyes had stayed locked on Jim's.

He'd thought she'd died that afternoon.

There was a moment when her eyes had slipped and her body had felt heavy and her skin was so pale – too pale – and Jim was shaking like his body might fall apart if not for her solid weight resting in his arms.

Then her eyes had slithered open and her lips had fluttered, and she'd been whispering a name, over and over, and Jim had never quite been able to make it out over the rush of blood in his ears.

He realises much later that she'd been calling for Will.

He thinks perhaps he should tell him that someday.

It is past midnight and the team is loud despite packing up for the night.

Mackenzie is leant against the bar with a martini clutched firmly in hand and Sloan chatting away to her left. She's relaxed and smiling and _beautiful_, and Jim thanks god everyday that this insane wisp of a woman is still with them.

He sidles up to her, interrupting their conversation, and hooks an arm around her tiny waist to press his hands to her back where the knife almost sliced through. She gulps in a deep breath and laughs giddily as Jim continues to hug her, but then her own arms loop up and around his shoulders and she holds on tight.

"Happy Birthday Mackenzie," he whispers in her ear, and he feels her giggle a response. He leans back and kisses her cheek and Sloan is grinning dopily at them by his side.

"How are you getting home?" he asks, and Mackenzie's eyes flicker past him to the man still sitting in the corner. He doesn't have to turn to know the answer and Sloan is doing a terrible job of keeping a straight face.

"Don't do anything stupid," he whispers, winking, and then lets her go.

Mackenzie gasps in indignation and turns to punch him in the shoulder. It hurts perhaps more than it should, and he can hear Will laughing behind him as he approaches. Mackenzie's wearing a smug little smile and twirling a strand of hair around her finger.

God help Will McAvoy, is all Jim can think.

ooo

There are many thinks people think about Mackenzie McHale. Good, bad, in-between – they're all somewhat true.

Jim doesn't know if he'll survive them all.

But he's more willing to try.


End file.
